Hello everyone, I’m an ex-Muslim. My new name is Castiel. I’m 23, and this is my testimony. I hope it helps you.
So in the beginning, Islam started with me at the age of 7, and I was told that I must start praying. I was of age, and if I didn’t, Allah would put me in Hell, because every creature was made to pray to Allah. So I did pray, out of fear.
In school, the Islamic book we had was teaching us about lying. They told us you could lie, and there were white lies and bad lies.
They tell us the greatest thing we could do in Islam is to die in the name of Allah (Jihad), so as kids at a young age, we would interpret this as the most honourable thing (brainwashing), which is how I see it.
So I was a fat kid, I was missing some prayers, so that made me think that Allah hated me. As a kid, I always questioned Allah and the way we prayed. I asked myself, ‘Why do I not feel anything?’ My prayer was the same every single day, and I felt nothing.
Even more, I had this unsettling feeling every time I would hear the Qur’an [recitation], I would just feel this fear in me, and I would go away or just try not to hear it.
Another red flag, around me, I saw my family going to the shrines of imams to pray to them. They see them as equals to prophets or higher.
Every year, my cousins, friends and people all around would take a sword and make the top of their head bleed, and they would take chains and strike it at their back.
People in Iraq would come from all around Iraq walking to go to the shrine of Imam Hossain, and for a whole week, it caused roads to be closed, stores and businesses, especially schools, were all closed for almost two weeks, and they would get good scores with Allah because of this.
When I would go out to get groceries, I would encounter these people in the streets who would have a dark circular mark on their foreheads to show people that they were better than others. To me, this never felt right. I didn’t like them.
I was a Shia Muslim, and one day my Sunni friend told me that he could kill me because I’m Kafir (non-Muslim) to him, as I was not following his Sunnah. I was just sad he had said this, so I told myself, ‘let me try and become a Sunni Muslim’. So I did because they did not worship shrines and imams, and surprise, surprise, it made not a single difference. It was worse because if I were to be a devout Sunni, I would be required to kill Jews, Christians and non-believers.
I was brain-washed by Islam, but no way would anyone convince me that every Jew, Christian and non-believers where just evil. It just is not possible; it didn’t make sense. They were just humans, just like me. Why would I even think of hating or even killing them? That was evil! So I asked ‘what is the difference between ISIS and Taliban, and me’? The difference is that I have much higher morals than them. I condemned what they had done. They had no moral code; that was the difference.
So I was lost and decided to leave Islam and just be a good person. I did believe in God, but I did nothing. So I started to work on myself. I was training and studying.
Life was looking good until one day my father had a brain stroke and was paralysed. And I had so much anger growing in me. I failed at my school. Every time I tried to pass school, I would not study; I just didn’t want to. I was the only one with my mother to take care of my father. He is not the optimistic kind. He’s always angry at me, at my mother.
Time and time again, I asked myself, ‘Why was this happening?’ Day by day, I would wish to have my life ended, I would punch the cement wall to put my anger out until I broke my hand. So I became depressed, and all my anger turned into self-hatred. I would ask Allah why He wouldn’t help me.
I was left astray until one day it was a Thursday night. I was up all night. It started to rain outside. I loved rain – it rarely rains in Iraq. So I got out, but I was not able to enjoy it. I was too depressed. So I sat down crying, asking god why I’m going to Hell. At this time, I had this feeling that I was definitely going to Hell. So after that, I just stayed there until I felt better.
I got back in my room, opened YouTube, and the first video was about different religions. So I clicked on it. The guy in the video was explaining the differences between Christianity and other religions. I watched the video, but there wasn’t anything about Islam. So I opened the comments to see what people said about this, and there were people like me saying why Islam wasn’t there, and people would tell them to go see Jay Smith, who has exposed Islam. So I searched for him, and every doubt I had in me about Islam hit me hard, and he always said, “Come home to Jesus, he loves you”.
I needed it, so I downloaded the Bible and started reading the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all day until my eyes would physically hurt. I had never cried reading a book before. Jesus was loving, he forgave sins, he healed the sick, he healed the blind, he raised the dead, he is so kind, he treats the people around him with such love, he sits with people who are lost, but he gives them hope. He doesn’t like hypocrites. He gave amazing parables like how a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. It just made so much sense to me. Like every evil group, ISIS & Taliban were just the bad fruit of Islam. It couldn’t have been clearer than that. Islam was the bad tree.
So I believed in him, but struggled to keep my faith strong, and I would pray to have a stronger faith. I even considered Judaism. I saw Jewish people were oppressed by Islam, so I was thinking about it for a while, but I just couldn’t get my mind around Jesus dying on a cross for my sins and how my anger and hate and swearing were just gone and how safe I felt with him. I have finally felt at home. I felt safe and loved. I have tried so many things, but nothing could make me feel at peace like Jesus Christ.
So I stumbled on this guy called David Wood (@Apologetics Roadshow), who is so knowledgeable about Islam. He would call the hypocrites on YouTube the “Dawah liars” who would just lie to their followers about Islam, and he gave so many problems with Islam and always spoke with facts and truth. He helped me with leaving Islam, and he had very good jokes. 😂 All of that yet i was afraid of calling Jesus god so i started to pray and asked jesus lord will god the father punish me if i call you god, and then not even 5 minutes after i opened my bible i and i read in luke 6:46 jesus said why do you call me lord lord and not do what i say ?, well i got the chills then i said ok jesus i know im asking too much but can you give me another sign then next day i was watching David wood vs Alex O’Connor debate about if jesus claimed to be god, then david uses the same verse on his presentation from luke 6:46 why do you call me lord lord and not do what i say ? this time my god doubles down on the sign he gave to me, what can i say i was star struck im nobody but god answers my prayers, that made me a believer in god who loves all of us a god who answer prayers a god who look at us in our darkest times in life and give us a hand a god who accepts our repentances a god who give us purpose in life to preach the good news to our brothers and sisters all around the world every nation and every race no matter what you’ve done in your life know that Jesus Christ loves you.
Testimony of Castiel.
Editing and illustrations by the blog author.
Koran Contradiction 
